Chapter 17: Distant Thunder
The vampire's name was Carl, and he was absolutely terrible at delivering gossip.
"So there's this thing in Bon Temps," he said, four TruBloods into his evening at The Silver Dollar. "Weird murders. Women who hang out with vampires getting killed."
I kept my expression neutral, but something cold moved through my chest. The timeline was accelerating. Season 1 was beginning.
"What kind of murders?"
Carl shrugged—the exaggerated motion of someone who didn't actually know the details but wanted to seem informed. "Strangled, maybe? Something brutal. The cops are blaming vampires, obviously, but it doesn't feel right. We don't usually leave bodies."
Maudette Pickens. Dawn Green. The Rattrays will be next, then Bill Compton arrives, then Sookie—
I forced the meta-knowledge aside and focused on what I was supposed to know: nothing specific, just rumors from a traveling vampire.
"Bon Temps is Area 5," Elena said. She'd joined us at the bar, ostensibly reviewing inventory but actually monitoring Carl for useful information. "Eric's problem."
"Eric doesn't give a shit about some backwater murders. Long as nobody's exposing us, he lets humans sort themselves out." Carl finished his TruBlood and signaled for another. "Just thought you'd want to know. Bad business affects all of us."
After Carl left—three hours and twelve TruBloods later, his tab comfortably paid—Elena cornered me in the office.
"You went somewhere when he mentioned Bon Temps. I saw your face."
"I was thinking."
"About what? Some murders eighty miles away shouldn't matter to us."
She was right, from her perspective. Bon Temps was distant, irrelevant to Monroe's concerns. A rational vampire would dismiss Carl's gossip and return to local matters.
But I wasn't rational about Bon Temps. I knew what was coming—the cascade of events that would reshape Louisiana's supernatural landscape. Bill Compton's arrival, Sookie's abilities becoming known, the escalating chaos that would eventually drag in Eric, Sophie-Anne, and forces far more dangerous than small-town murders.
The main plot is beginning. Stay away from it.
"I want to establish an information channel," I said. "Someone in Bon Temps who can keep us informed about developments."
Elena's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because what happens there might spread. Vampire-related murders attract attention—media, authorities, possibly vampire hunters. I'd rather know if that attention is heading our way."
It was a reasonable explanation, and Elena accepted it without further question. But the truth was more complicated. I needed to know if events were following the pattern I remembered, or if my presence had already begun changing things.
Butterfly effects. The curse of meta-knowledge.
The storm rolled in around 11 PM, announced by a rumble of thunder that silenced the bar's conversations for a moment before the rain arrived.
Louisiana storms were different from what I remembered in Seattle. More violent, more sudden, the sky opening up like someone had pulled a drain plug. Within minutes, the parking lot was flooded, and the customers who'd planned to leave found themselves trapped.
Then the power went out.
The Silver Dollar's emergency lighting kicked in—battery-powered, installed during renovations—casting the main room in dim red glow. The humans made nervous sounds, the particular unease of primates caught in darkness. The two vampires present showed no reaction; darkness was our native state.
"Generator?" Elena asked.
"Not yet. Let's see if it comes back."
I moved through the room, checking on customers by touch and voice rather than sight. George's regulars at the domino table had produced flashlights from somewhere—probably kept in their pockets for exactly this situation. Janet was helping Delia calm a tourist who'd started hyperventilating.
And I found myself standing at the window, watching the storm rage, feeling something I hadn't experienced since transmigration.
Peace.
The darkness was absolute. The rain hammered against the roof with white-noise intensity. For ten minutes, the world shrank to this building and these people, all of us trapped together in the storm's belly.
I remembered storms from my old life. Seattle's gray drizzle, the occasional thunderstorm that knocked out power to the downtown office. I'd hated those interruptions, seen them as obstacles to productivity. Now they felt like gifts—moments when the constant grinding of ambition paused, and something simpler took over.
Normal people, normal fears. I almost remember what that felt like.
The lights flickered back at 11:22 PM. The customers cheered with the exaggerated relief of people who'd been genuinely scared. The vampires resumed their conversations as if nothing had happened.
George appeared at my elbow, moving with the careful slowness his cancer now demanded.
"You were smiling," he said.
"Was I?"
"In the dark. Couldn't see your face, but I could tell." He patted my shoulder with his warm, fragile hand. "Nice to know you can still do that."
He shuffled back to his chair, leaving me with the strange awareness that a dying human had just offered me comfort I hadn't known I needed.
The Bon Temps contact came through within the week.
His name was Howard—a middle-aged accountant who'd moved to the area for retirement and discovered that small-town Louisiana was exactly as boring as advertised. He supplemented his income with odd jobs, including information gathering for people willing to pay.
"I don't know what you're looking for exactly," he said during our phone call. His voice had the flat quality of someone who didn't ask questions. "But I can tell you what people are talking about."
"That's exactly what I want. Weekly reports. Who's arrived, who's left, anything unusual. Especially anything involving vampires."
"That new vampire just moved in. The dark-haired one, lives in the old Compton place."
Bill. Right on schedule.
"Tell me about him."
"Keeps to himself mostly. Been seen around Merlotte's bar—that's the local watering hole. People say he's interested in one of the waitresses."
Sookie. It's all happening exactly as I remember.
I thanked Howard, arranged payment, and ended the call. The timeline was intact. Whatever changes my presence might eventually cause, they hadn't propagated to Bon Temps yet. The main plot was proceeding without me.
Good. Stay in the margins. Let the heroes handle the heroics.
Elena found me staring at a map of Louisiana I'd pinned to the office wall. Bon Temps was marked with a red pin, sixty miles southwest of our position.
"You're obsessing about that town."
"I'm monitoring it. There's a difference."
"Same difference, in my experience." She studied the map with professional attention. "What are you expecting to happen there?"
"Chaos. Eventually." I pulled the map down, rolled it into a tube. "But not our chaos. Not yet."
"And if it spreads?"
"Then we'll be ready. But I don't think it will—not for a while. The events there are..." I searched for a word that wouldn't reveal too much. "Self-contained."
Elena accepted the assessment without argument. She trusted my judgment, even when my reasoning remained opaque. That trust was a resource I was careful not to abuse.
"What's next, then?"
"I have a hospital visit to make."
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